Academic

Faith and Corporate Law

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

One of the questions posed by David Skeel in his opening contribution to this discussion is: How is a Christian perspective on corporate law different from communitarian theories of corporate law?  As David notes, some of the insights of Christian perspectives on corporate law resonate with communitarian insights, and it is the case that secular progressive corporate law scholars have argued for broader notions of corporate responsibility based on communitarian principles and other theoris of distributive justice. 

I do think that the religious perspective adds something in offering a different vision of the human person and of relations among persons than that offered by secular theories  In a piece I published in the Wake Forest Law Review give years ago, I articulated a vision of the person rooted in religion, contrasing that with the  vision of the person that I think underlies much secular corprate law scholarship.  In talking near the end of the piece about precisely the question raised by David I wrote:

The value of the religious persepctive of the person, an advantage not shared by these other approaches, is that it gets to the root, giving it a greater likelihood of success.  Some commentators have suggested the 'corporate social responsibility is a problem that never goes away,' because corporations are 'inherently untrustworthy.'  If we attempt to deal with it sipmly by attempting to change conduct without changing underlying notions that produce that conduct, I agree that the problem will always be with us.  However, addressing, and attempting to change, the core view of the individual and her relation to the world attacks the problem at a different level and aims to create an environment where other changes may flow more naturally."

I continue to think that what I wrote then is true.

I willl have something to say about audience and some of the other questions in a later post. 

Full post as published by Conglomerate on May 04, 2009 (boomark / email).